Placing an LCD TV above a stone faced fireplace?

My wife and I are getting ready to move into a new home. The family room is two stories with a spectacular cultured stone fireplace. We'd like to mount a 40" LCD TV above the gas fireplace. Here are several options we came up with:

1. Reinforce the back of the framed fireplace with 2 x 6's and mount the TV directly to the stone using a special mount. Cons: This will completely ruin the stone behind the TV.

2. Hang the TV from suspension wires, similar to how Lowes or Home Depot hangs its large isle signs from the rafters. Cons: I've never seen this done before with a TV. Suspension wires may detract from the beauty of the two story stone fireplace. No place to attach the wires to the TV.

3. Set the TV on the fireplace mantel. Cons: Cultured stone mantel doesn't look like it's wide or deep enough, and may not be able to support the weight. TV could easily get bumped off if not secured some other way.

So that's what we've come up with. Which do you feel is the best solution? If anyone has any other ideas or has done this before please post your experience here.

Thanks,
Kelly

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i would choose the first one,its normal in china that people install something on the wall,you can not see the ruined stone as they are covered by the wide TV screen,if you wanna move away this TV in future,this stone is easy to repaire.

Hope it helps.

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Yeah, I call this room the cathedral. BTW, this is a photo of the builder's model home. My drywall and fireplace hasven't been built yet, so we are planning on running the TV cable and power behind and through the stone work.

Make sure you have a large enough conduit run to handle all the cables that will be running to the set. I would suggest at least a 3" pipe.

At the least, there's going to be at least one HDMI cable maybe two, and/or a couple sets of component wires and maybe even coax cable for OTA reception running to the back of the set. Or if you're running a cable card into the set there's another run of Coax from the cable Co.

My plasma has 1 HDMI cable for the Set top Box(cable, satellite etc), Component cable for the DVD player, Coax cable for the OTA digital audio from the set to the reciever, Component for the DVR, Coax for the OTA tuner built into the set, Audio cables to get sound to the TV because I don't always use my reciever to watch the news in the AM.

Additionally, If your going to have conduit installed to run cabling, May I suggest having whoever installs it to leave you with a couple of pull strings inside of the conduit so that in the future you can pull additional cables through without having to fish it yourself.

Somebody should have addressed this issue about eight weeks ago, before the drywall went up. A couple of holes in the stone for mounting the bracket is trivial compared to getting wires from the tv to the componemts and out to the speakers. Surely you jest about hanging the tv from wires??

Somebody should have addressed this issue about eight weeks ago, before the drywall went up. A couple of holes in the stone for mounting the bracket is trivial compared to getting wires from the tv to the componemts and out to the speakers. Surely you jest about hanging the tv from wires??

Oops, saw the later post about the picture being the builder model and yours not being done yet. Just put blocking for the bracket to screw to. Unless you plan on not living in the house long, I would not worry about the couple of holes in the stone, there is going to be a much bigger penetration for the wiring and a receptacle that is going to look mighty strange in the middle of the fireplace if the tv is removed. If you have to sell this house, I would use the "plasma tv to remain" as a marketing tool. Remember, it will be old technology anyway in a few years, and if you build another house, you will most likely want the latest again. I suggest getting the bracket during the rough in stage of your project, so the cabling guy and the electrician will know where to mount their boxes. There is quite a bit of variation among different bracket manufacturers for these locations.

If the fireplace hasn't been constructed yet, why not install some sort of anchor bolts in the mortar for the TV? The possibilities are virtually endless since it hasn't been built yet...

This is what the project manager suggested, and I think it's a really good idea, so we're going to attempt this solution. My only concern is that mortar is relatively soft, so I'm afraid that I could really screw up the fireplace if I don't do this just right. Plus, if I over tighten the wooden mounting plate I may even crack the stone or the joints.

Here's what I'm thinking. Please let me know if this sounds like it would work or if I should do someting different. This starts from the back moving forward.